Saving and cooking with bacon fat is resourceful, cost efficient, and, least surprising, f’ing scrumptious.

My 12 year old son, Dane, loves bacon. Our family even gives him bacon themed and flavored gifts on holidays. Seriously, he can’t get enough of the salty swine.

It’s no surprise then, that many of my mornings are spent filling my home with the sound of music and the smell of bacon. I make sure that it’s organic, hormone free, etc., of course. While my sons and I are happy in our carnivorous lifestyle, I respect the animals that our food comes from. I attempt to use every possible portion and waste as little as possible. The same applies to the fat that renders out of the morning bacon.

I usually make my bacon on the electric grill or in a frying pan. I let the fat cool and strain into a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. By straining it, I get rid of any bits of meat that might spoil.

Because everything tastes better infused with bacon flavor, I rub it on chicken, use it to lubricate the pan when preparing my scrambled eggs and sauté veggies in the deliciousness.

When I’m ready, I simply grab my jar, grab a teaspoon and access it in the same fashion I do my grass fed butter or coconut oil.

Perhaps some of you are reading this flabbergasted that I keep a jar of bacon fat on my counter. Isn’t bacon, and its fat in particular, unhealthy and bad for you? That depends on who you ask. If you ask me, the answer is a resounding no. From the Weston A. Price Foundation:

Bacon’s primary asset is its fat, and that fat— surprise! – is primarily monounsaturated.  Fifty percent of the fat in bacon is monounsaturated, mostly consisting of oleic acid, the type so valued in olive oil.   About three percent of that is palmitoleic acid, a monounsaturate with valuable antimicrobial properties.  About 40 percent of bacon fat is saturated, a level that worries fat phobics, but is the reason why bacon fat is relatively stable and unlikely to go rancid under normal storage and cooking conditions.   That’s important, given the fact that the remaining 10 percent is in the valuable but unstable form of polyunsaturates.

Pork fat also contains a novel form of phosophatidyl choline that possesses antioxidant activity superior to Vitamin E.   This may be one reason why lard and bacon fat are relatively stable and unprone to rancidity from free radicals.

As always, my thoughts come with the prerequisite of moderation. Also, pay attention to how the pigs are treated, raised and fed. When we use and reuse as many parts of the animals that we slaughter, we are respecting the food chain. By utilizing our bacon fat, we buy less commercially produced oils and butters, saving the environment the burden of packaging waste.

In addition to being more humane and better for the environment, animals raised on a natural, healthy and species appropriate diet provide superior nutrition for us. The WAP Foundation continues:

Bacon fat from pastured pigs also comes replete with fat-soluble vitamin D, provided it’s bacon from foraging pigs that romp outdoors in the sun for most of year.    Factory-farmed pigs kept indoors and fed rations from soy, casein, corn meal, and other grains, are likely to show low levels of Vitamin D.

The ripple effect of small actions, multiplied by huge numbers of humans, can and will substantially impact our world in a meaningful and powerful way. All of this, just for enjoying bacon fat. Talk about your win-win. Let me know below if you start saving yours.

Kap